


the sunday kind

by pensee



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Angst, Argentina, Death and Dying, Dying of heartbreak, Gen, Health decline, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Married Couple, Mention of hospice care, Mention of memory problems, Old Age, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Way way Post-WOTL, existential thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 01:23:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19937707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensee/pseuds/pensee
Summary: Hannibal’s last month of life leads to Will’s final days as well.





	the sunday kind

**Author's Note:**

> BOTH main characters die nonviolently of old age in this fic. Check the endnotes or tags for specifics.
> 
> Also, due to timeline things, Barney is Hannibal’s former student NOT a BSHCI orderly.

Will first hears the ocean in his ear, as if through the twisting canals of a seashell, a month before Hannibal dies.

He thinks of the sand beneath his toes, water lapping at them as they walked the shore adjacent to Bedelia’s vacation house the week they paid her that fateful visit.

They live close enough to the beach now to have a view of the water, though that’s not where the noise comes from, and Will pictures, in his slowly eroding memory palace, a house on a cliff and a glass of Château d’Yquem in his hands.

Age is a funny thing, he thinks. It gave him the opportunity to have all these experiences, and now, it was taking them away.

 _I used to accuse you of the same thing_ , he tells himself, rueful as he looks at his husband—chopping onions for dinner, movements graceful as always, though his eyes are unusually blank. But there are greater forces in the world than Hannibal Lecter, he thinks sadly, and every man has his time.

Will knows, in his bones, that there’s not much time left.

Still, Hannibal tries, with the precision of a dying man counting the seconds, to dress himself and Will, their driver dutifully taking them to the opera house, for the touring troupe’s last performance of _Turandot_.

Feeling eyes on his back, Will turns around in the dark during the end of the first act, and Hannibal, without stirring much, inhales sharply at his side. He squeezes his husband’s hand, but Hannibal is too enraptured by the soprano onstage to notice.

When the lights go up for intermission, he cannot find the eyes that were watching them, but then, in the shadowed heights of the topmost balcony, he sees the enormous frame hunched over behind his program, a greying woman with frizzy hair tugging curiously at the man’s arm.

He smiles to himself. Barney.

Hannibal had once told him of his favorite former student’s quest to view every Vermeer in the world, and he wonders if the work temporarily at the Museo Nacional is the last item on his checklist. There were a few old reports of the Murder Husbands being spotted in nearby Chile, and Barney had likely and wisely thought to avoid Buenos Aires until he was sure they were gone.

Unlike his other students, who had blindly struggled to keep up with the university’s pre-med curriculum when Hannibal had been using a professor’s identity in Singapore, Barney had been more astute in remembering the old headlines, remembered that the Red Dragon’s body had been the only one ever found. 

Having made the poor decision to follow a girlfriend halfway across the world who soon broke up with him anyway, Barney had chosen wisely the second time around, and kept his mouth shut when he realized that his anatomy professor had a little too much hands-on experience in violating the Hippocratic oath.

Decided instead to learn the finer points of the more benign education that the doctor had to offer.

“Are we going to say hello,” Hannibal says, though it is not phrased like a question. Hannibal is clearly interested in catching up.

Will nearly rolls his eyes. _Still ordering me around, old man_.

Barney and his friend have attempted to flee to the lobby, but the sheer size of the crowd has hampered their movement, and they catch up within a few minutes. The woman, but not Barney, jumps at the sound of Hannibal’s voice.

“Barney,” he says, warmly as he’d greet an old friend, and Barney turns, the inevitability of certain doom rising on his features before he schools himself. Ever the professional, even if the more polite thing for Hannibal to do would be to address Barney by his own title in kind. 

“Hello, Doctor,” he says politely, leaving off the surname. “Um, this is my friend Lillian.”

“A pity you didn’t mention you’d be in Buenos Aires. We could have purchased much better seats for you.”

“It’s no trouble, thank you, Doctor. I don’t mind the nosebleeds.”

“Who’s this?” Lillian asks, gesturing to Hannibal. By her tone of voice, Barney has been mysterious about his personal life, though they are clearly close traveling companions and he has been courteous enough that she is not fearful of whatever mystery he presents.

“An old—Uh, an old professor of mine. Got me interested in Vermeer, actually,” Barney coughs. “This is his,” he glances down, notices the ring on Will’s finger, “husband.”

“So, you’re the one,” Lillian smiles, elbowing Barney lightly in the side. “This one always pretends he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but you must’ve taught him quite a bit of history. He’s always going on about this revolution or that art movement; I’m always reminding him that obscure sci-fi literature is more my forte.”

Hannibal raises his eyebrows in interest, but wastes no time getting to the point.

“The two of you should join us for dinner tomorrow,” he says. “It’s been so long since we’ve had a chance to talk.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Doctor,” Barney’s quick to say, but Lillian visibly pouts, and he looks between the three curious faces around him and caves.

“Alright,” he says, with the stress-sweating intention of one who wants to be on the next plane out of Argentina as soon as the conversation’s over.

Will writes down their address on a sheet of paper that Barney begrudgingly produces from his jacket pocket.

“Till tomorrow,” Hannibal smiles, and Barney shivers at the flicker of his still-sharp teeth.

At the first notes of the third act, Will’s skin prickles and he feels Hannibal’s dry fingers tracing nonsense patterns onto the back of his hand.

The tenor onstage swells, his voice expanding to fill every inch of the house, from basement to rafters, and Will’s breath stops. Sustaining the longest continuous note of _Nessun dorma_ , the tenor begins to sweat violently, the exertion of his craft causing his makeup to visibly run, though his song remains unvexed by the perspiration clouding his vision and stinging his eyes.

There are tears streaming down both their faces at curtain call, and Hannibal holds his hand all the way back to the car.

“I didn’t expect you to take us up on our invitation,” Will says, though there are warm smiles on their faces, Barney chuckling to himself as Hannibal insists on taking Lillian’s “coat”—a multicolored windbreaker she’s been using for decades.

This is one of the many things Hannibal likes about Barney: being nervous does not make him rude.

“I think he would’ve considered that unacceptable behavior,” Barney says, and Will exclaims in surprise as a few of the little rascals _who are supposed to be upstairs_ knock into his bad knees from behind, eagerly sniffing at the new company.

“Jove,” he hisses, the pudgy Doberman mix launching himself at Barney, who easily gets him to sit, scratching behind his ears.

“Be polite to our guests,” Hannibal says, and Jove snaps to, abandoning Barney and nuzzling into his master’s hand.

Missy, on the other hand, skitters towards Lillian, who awkwardly pats her on the side before Will gestures for everyone to come to the sitting room while Hannibal goes to the kitchen, the dogs obediently trotting back upstairs.

“Your old professor’s really sweet,” Lillian says to Barney, in the offhand, confiding way that couples may be, forgetting that there’s anyone else in the room. She looks sheepishly to Will, who has softened with age, smiling at her instead of snorting. “Oh, um, your husband’s really nice.”

“He sure likes to think so,” Will manages.

In the ensuing uncomfortable silence, he wonders if someday, Barney and Lillian will be in his place, some younger couple they’ve invited over for dinner struggling to make small talk.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” Barney says, measured, and Will’s mind flickers to the sheaf of papers hidden in the study upstairs. Medical reports, test results. “But the Doctor isn’t as spry as I remember.”

Barney does not comment on the fact that Hannibal is eighty-five years old, and it is a small impossibility that he can walk at all after being pushed off a cliff by the man now entertaining his guests.

“Well, there’s definitely a reason for that. And I’m tired of all the medical double-talk...Could you tell me what this means in English?” Will asks, and Lillian’s companionable smile dies as he lists off to Barney the endless number of conditions the hospital had informed him Hannibal had before his husband stubbornly checked himself out last week.

“I tried to get him to stay, but I think he was embarrassed. He collapsed at a public function, and since then—that was three weeks ago, he’s mostly stayed at home.”

“You both probably have a lot of scar tissue buildup and…other existing issues…from that incident years ago,” Barney says, and thankfully, it goes right over Lillian’s head as she strokes Barney’s wrist, puzzled but considerately silent.

“Compounded by age, those conditions you’re getting double-talked about aren’t...Well, they aren’t anything treatable. It sounds like his organs have been failing for a while.”

”He really should be in hospice,” Barney adds, voice and expression soft.

Will digs his nails into the arm of the couch.

“He doesn’t want palliative care. He wants to be here, and I need to be here with him,” he whispers, and Lillian reaches over to him, wraps her hand around his. He likes her a lot, he decides, but it’ll take another few thousand goes around until he deserves the compassion that she gives him, not even knowing his real name.

“Just make sure he doesn’t drop dead over the stove,” Barney says, instincts flaring up to chide a patient’s uncooperative family member.

“That I can do,” Will says, as Hannibal walks into the room—Will wondering if he’s heard their conversation and silently lain in wait all this time—announcing that dinner is to be served.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Barney says, addressing his host, genuine gratitude creating a hitch in his voice.

Hannibal doesn’t mention that he sends Barney off with a few million extra dollars than he arrived in Argentina with, until their bank in Switzerland calls to re-confirm the account creation and recent deposit.

“With an option to make it a joint account?” Will asks, raising an eyebrow as Hannibal stares out the window of his study, blanket tucked around him. Will wonders what he sees.

“I am a hopeless romantic at heart, it seems,” Hannibal says, and Will kisses the crown of his head, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “And there are many more things in this world for the two of them to experience together.”

That night, Hannibal walks himself up to bed extremely early, and Will follows him, curling up alongside on the soft mattress, feeling Hannibal’s hands run through his hair.

“Goodnight, my darling,” he says.

“Goodnight.”

In the morning, Hannibal doesn’t get out of bed.

The funeral arrangements have been made. Nothing ostentatious. As opposed to life, Hannibal wanted to go into death without so much as an obituary announcement in the paper. It would be of little help to Will if he got them caught now.

He can hear the dogs whining in the other room, but Will’s still sitting in the study in Hannibal’s chair, and petting Jove, whose eyes are shiny in the low moonlight from the opened window. Almost as if he’s crying.

Head on Will’s lap, he bats his snout against Will’s hand for comfort, and Will tries his best to provide.

“I miss Daddy, too,” he whispers, and Jove lets out a low, mournful cry at the sound of Hannibal’s name.

He walks along the shore, listening to the seabirds call out. For food, for danger, for their mates, and Will trudges on alone, smiling absentmindedly at the families and tourists that see him, a sweet old man, and wave.

Jove and their other babies are staying with friends for the weekend, and Will no longer feels anything about having lied to the couple about going out of town.

He goes home to his vast, cavernous house and stares for a long time at their empty bed, its sheets crisp but not as flawlessly arranged as they would’ve been had Hannibal been the one to make the bed this morning.

Will contemplates the ugly age spots that stretch up his arms, musing on whether there was an afterlife to look forward to after all this suffering, whether he would somehow manage to find Hannibal again.

The crucifix hanging over the bedroom doorway is in plain view from this angle, an ornament that had come with the house that Hannibal never found reason to remove.

Odd for a religious piece, Christ’s face is obscured by tangled hair. The ambiguity of it is absolutely perfect, Will thinks, before he turns out the light, laughing to himself that Hannibal’s self-serving obsession with Christendom had survived beyond the grave.

If he closes his eyes, he can feel his husband reach for him through the bones of this house that they brought to life together. The books in the study, the knives hidden beneath the bathroom counters. Expensive art in the halls, bits of broken machinery in the courtyard and shed. The suits that still hung in the closet, each pressed and waiting for someone to return to wear them.

There is no miracle for Will that night, no phantom arms to envelop him reassuringly, no clear sign from above. But there are reminders of Hannibal in the home they shared together, and maybe that is enough.

For the first time in a month, the constant rhythm of the tide in Will’s head goes quiet. The morning is bright and new, and he can hear the chirping of birds outside their window.

Then, faintly, the water grows louder and begins to rise, crashing against the rocks, booming against the cliff where they were reborn, tangled like lovers in each other’s arms.

Will lets himself fall back, and the waves swallow him whole.

**Author's Note:**

> The character deaths are non-violent/non-graphic in nature, though Hannibal is described as having organ failure before he passes away (Will dies of heartbreak soon after). BRIEF hint that Will has dementia and/or some other memory problems at the beginning.
> 
> Come cry with me about old and grey Murder Hubbies @penseeart on Twitter.


End file.
